This invention relates to a musical toy having audiovisual characteristics.
Musical toys for young children are well known in the art. Usually, such toys are essentially reduced size models of known musical instruments, such as pianos, clarinets, trumpets, drums and xylophones. Of course, the structures of such musical toys are substantially less complex than the structures of the corresponding musical instruments and are manufactured from materials which are substantially less expensive than those used for manufacture of the corresponding musical instruments.
Unless a child is skilled in playing the toy as a musical instrument, the primary appeal of most known musical toys is limited to the initial stimulation of the child's basic sense of hearing and sound which results from the child's first attempts to play the toy as a musical instrument. Unfortunately, most young children do not have well developed musical skills, and, therefore, are very limited in their abilities to play musical toys as musical instruments. Accordingly, most known musical toys have only limited play value after their initial period of use.
It is well known that most young children are intrigued by visual experiences. For this reason, a musical toy which creates a simultaneous visual effect would have substantially greater play value for sustained time periods than is the case with most known musical toys. Such a musical toy would be particularly suitable for use by young children who do not have well developed musical skills. And, of course, such a musical toy should be both inexpensive to manufacture and safe and easy for use by young children.